The Devil's Lore

Standard Midrange RUG (Temur) Theme/Gimmick

usurphling

Creature (14)

• 1x Dragonlord Atarka
• 2x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• 2x Living Lore
• 4x Sin Prodder
• 2x Surrak, the Hunt Caller
• 3x Tireless Tracker

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Arlinn Kord  ^Flip

Land (23)

• 4x Cinder Glade
• 2x Evolving Wilds
• 5x Forest
• 1x Game Trail
• 3x Island
• 2x Lumbering Falls
• 3x Mountain
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Wandering Fumarole
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Artifact (3)

• 3x Corrupted Grafstone

Instant (5)

• 1x Dragonlord's Prerogative
• 3x Lightning Axe
• 1x Reclaim

Sorcery (14)

• 1x Chandra's Ignition
• 3x Gather the Pack
• 1x Nissa's Renewal
• 1x Part the Waterveil
• 2x Pore Over the Pages
• 1x Seasons Past
• 1x The Great Aurora
• 4x Tormenting Voice

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Sideboard

Creature (4)

• 1x Gaea's Revenge
• 3x Thunderbreak Regent

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Chandra, Flamecaller

Instant (6)

• 2x Clip Wings
• 1x Invasive Surgery
• 2x Negate
• 1x Pulse of Murasa

Sorcery (4)

• 3x Radiant Flames
• 1x Talent of the Telepath

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I have been brewing Living Lore since its inception in standard and I love the way it works in my decks. In fact, the first deck that I brewed for it made a good success in our local stores around Hampton Roads area.

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Discovering Living Lore in Temur! [1st Place FNM]

Standard* usurphling

SCORE: 22 | 32 COMMENTS | 3994 VIEWS | IN 14 FOLDERS

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Now in SOI, I will attempt to make a deck around it still in Temur colors. Even its not as explosive as before, it retains its surprise factor to your opponents. Imagine a Living Lore doing lethal damage to your opponent, casting a Chandra's Ignition to your biggest guy and win the game or making a comeback thanks to a timely The Great Aurora.

Again, if you don't know how Living Lore shenanigans work, press the spoiler button below:

How does Living Lore works? Show

In order to make it effective in the battlefield, you need to exile an instant or sorcery preferably the big ones. Also, it needs to deal combat damage to make it trigger its ability...

...but wait, this is where the tricky part. The good thing about it is it only needs to DEAL COMBAT DAMAGE not necessary to deal it with a player. The bad thing about it is it needs to SURVIVE COMBAT before it does its trigger which is to sacrifice it and cast the exiled spell w/o paying its mana cost. Also, you will receive any combat damage that you will have and cast the exiled spell at the same time.

Let's cite some examples:

Scenario 1: One on one Living Lore with Treasure Cruise

• Living Lore attacks with a 8/8 exiled Treasure Cruise
• Opponent blocks it with a 4/5 Siege Rhino.
• both creatures dealt combat damage, rhino dies, Living Lore lives.
• Living Lore can sacrifice itself and cast Treasure Cruise

Scenario 2: One on one Living Lore with Languish

• Living Lore attacks with a 4/4 exiled Languish
• Opponent blocks it with a 4/5 siege rhino.
• both creatures dealt combat damage, Living Lore dies, rhino lives.
• Living Lore cannot sacrifice itself since its already in the graveyard to do its triggered ability.

Scenario 3: Two on one Living Lore with Crux of Fate

• Opponent attacks with a 3/2 megamorphed Den Protector and a 4/5 Siege Rhino
• You blocked den protector with your 5/5 Living Lore with Crux of Fate.
• all creatures dealt combat damage, den protector dies, Living Lore lives, Rhino dealt combat damage.
• Living Lore can sacrifice itself and cast Crux of Fate. You had just wiped the board but you will still receive combat damage from the rhino.

So now that you know the interactions with Living Lore, I'll do a breakdown of the "big" spells that I included in this color combination:

• The Great Aurora - this card is sweet! It can make or break the game for both players. In my experience, I always get the advantage of this card screwing midrange and control decks and casting my craetures and win the game. If everything falls apart against your favor just press this button!

• Seasons Past - the newest big spell from SOI to reload your hand. Remember to get a land as zero drop.

• Part the Waterveil - the newest extra turn for this standard season. I miss Temporal Trespass so bad that makes my Living Lore an 11/11 creature. Again, its not too bad to take an extra turn to win the game. lol

• Chandra's Ignition - a potential boardwipe and a finisher. Imagine casting it to a 9/9 Living Lore and finish the game.

• Pore Over the Pages and Dragonlord's Prerogative - man I miss Treasure Cruise but these cards are very good to me. They give you enormous card advantage and untapping some lands is very good to cast another spell for you. With Living Lore, you can always reload your hand at no time.

• Nissa's Renewal - This card is very good in catching up mid-late game matches and also it gives you an enormous lifegain which is what this deck needs. With Living Lore, you can have a lot of mana to cast your remaining cards in hand and you can also cast big spells in no time specially The Great Aurora.

• Sorry Clone Legion, you are not included in this deck because you solely depend on number of creatures in the battlefield. However, with the popularity of creature decks like Reflector Mages, eldrazis, humans, etc, I might reconsider you in the sideboards.

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The creatures:

• Jace, Vryn's Prodigy   - there is no doubt, the best looter in standard today. You can always discard the big spell and cast living lore to exile it. Also, you can always flashback any spells to support it.

• Tireless Tracker - recently as of this editing, I found out his power here in this deck. He can give you card advantage like my other draw spells. He can also be a big body thanks to Nissa's Renewal and Evolving Wilds and eventually a very good target for Chandra's Ignition. Overall, a very good resilient card in early game pairing it with Sin Prodder .

• Sin Prodder - Living Lore's new partner in crime. He gives you either card advantage or make your spells a potentially big fireball. His menace ability is just a bonus.

• Surrak, the Hunt Caller - a nice addition to the team that gives one of my guys haste. With Living Lore, you can cast your spell immediately as it resolves.

• Dragonlord Atarka - she is still a force to deal with this deck. With or without Chandra's Ignition she will close the game for you.

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Other Spells:

• Corrupted Grafstone - our mana dork that requires a colored card in the graveyard. Don't worry, we have a lot of ways to discard a card to take advantage of it such as..

• Tormenting Voice - a very good card filtering for living lores to be exiled or discarding your excess lands.

• Lightning Bolt wait I mean Lightning Axe - your one drop instant speed that does very good amount of damage to creatures. You will most likely discard a card to cast this.

• Gather the Pack - this is another enabler for Living Lores and it digs for creatures that you will need in any stages of the game specially with spell mastery.

• Arlinn Kord   - the only pure planeswalker in this deck that gives your guys haste, a free lightning bolt, a blocker and a glorious anthem. This is also very good with Living Lore to give it haste and cast its exiled spell.

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The sideboards:

• Gaea's Revenge - an absolute all star in any control matchups. It can't be countered, it can't be the target of any popular removal spells right now ( Declaration in Stone , Anguished Unmaking, Ultimate Price ) and a hasty big creature that can finish the game for you.

• Thunderbreak Regent - very good with human based decks (bant company, human decks, BG sacrifice, etc) paired with Radiant Flames. It can also be good in control if they focus too much on spot removal paired with Sin Prodder for more pressure.

• Clip Wings - of course, this is for the angels (read: Archangel Avacyn  ), dragonlords and any flying creatures (although most of them can be killed by Lightning Axe hehe)

• Radiant Flames - for hyper aggressive decks and decks that goes wide in the battlefield.

• Pulse of Murasa - same concept as Radiant Flames and helps you survive and recover in early game. A very good partner of Reclaim.

• Talent of the Telepath - this is something that Living Lore can exile and use it again against control or even in midrange decks. This helps us to steal their precious spells to use it as an advantage. You may never know, you will meet a mill deck and steal their Startled Awake   hehehe!

• Negate - is used in any spell heavy matchups.

• Invasive Surgery - is a good backup with other counterspells [and remove their Declaration in Stone s, Transgress the Minds, etc that bothers our Living Lores lol]

• Chandra, Flamecaller - for grinding and attrition matchups (control, midrage in post board)

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Well this is it for now. I need to think of good SB cards for this deck. As always, a +1 upvote, comments, suggestions and constructive criticisms are always welcome.

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For more shenanigans rogue decks that I brewed/innovated, you can check those decks below:

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Sigarda, Host of Hedron Alignments [EMN]

Standard usurphling

SCORE: 4 | 9 COMMENTS | 2070 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

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ENJOY!!!

Top Ranked	Achieved #28 position overall 8 years ago
Date added	8 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 1 Mythic Rares 23 - 8 Rares 12 - 2 Uncommons 7 - 4 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	3.35
Tokens	Clue, Elemental 3/1 R, Emblem Arlinn Kord, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Human 2/2 G, Wolf 2/2 G
Folders	Temur, Decks